Driveup Starbucks

It's 6:45 Monday night, and I'm pickin'.  Decided to walk to town as I'm never disappointed at the amount of junk waiting for pickup on the west side of Hwy. 7.  This night was no exception as there in the middle of the intersection of Stanley Avenue and Hwy. 7 was an 80-pound bag of Portland cement.  The bag was broken, and cement was piled high clogging up the intersection.  I tugged at the bag.  Ugh!  Even with part of the bag spread around, it was still pretty heavy.  Wouldn't you know if an 80-pound bag of Portland fell off the back of your truck?  Wouldn't you want to stop and salvage as much of the cement as you could?  Well, probably not considering an 80-pound bag costs only $4.90.  Time is money after all. 

You guys know the most common use for cement is production of concrete, right?  The name is derived from its similarity to Portland Stone, a building stone quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England.  The raw materials in Portland cement are calcium oxide, silicon oxide, aluminum oxide, ferric oxide and magnesium oxide.  Pretty oxidious, huh?  Cement is one of 3 materials used to make concrete, the other 2 being sand and water.  So please don't confuse or use the words concrete and cement interchangeably, e.g. "Tommy, don't play in Aunt Alice's flower bed; stay on the cement." 

Anyway, a little sand, a little rain and this could turn into a real mess.  I couldn't just leave it there.  Dropping my black bag and picker at the curb, I lugged the half bag of cement to the side of the road.  At least that way no more trucks would make the bag their target.  What's a picker to do?  I made mental plans to come back for the rest, residue and remainder of the stuff at a later time, and I continued north on 7.

There is a completely different crowd out at 7:00 p.m. than at 6:00 a.m.  At 7 p.m. all the tourists are hurrying to their favorite restaurant.  At 6 a.m.--well, you know what?  There aren't really that many people out at that hour.  It's cool, quiet, and what in the world was I doing out pickin' past 7 p.m?  Tim and Brenda probably wondered the same thing as they zoomed past, their Jeep greeting me with several friendly beeps.  I checked the time.  7:40.  Lee had arranged earlier to pick me up at Starbucks at about 8:00.  What was I going to do for the next 20 minutes?  I guess I could always go inside and get a cup of water.  Oh, there's something to look forward to:  sitting alone by the river with my safety vest on drinking a Starbucks water.  Just as I was picturing this travesty, the Jeep pulled up beside me in the southbound lane.  There was Brenda handing me a grande latte and Tim asking if I needed sugar, napkins or a straw.  Friends do the most randomly wonderful things!  As suddenly as they had appeared, off they went with the largest smiles on their faces I've ever seen.

Change of plans.  I walked the 50 yards or so to the river behind Starbucks and sat there in my safety vest with my driveup Starbucks and MY great big smile!  I called Lee, and sweetheart that he is, came with the truck and a flat-nosed shovel to clean up the cement at Stanley Ave. and Hwy. 7 while I enjoyed my coffee.  We agreed to meet at the library parking lot.  Swallowing the last precious drop, I picked my way across the street.  A middle-aged man leaning against his car mused, "Ive never seen anyone picking up trash after dark.  Can you choose your own hours?  "Yes, I can," came my quick reply.

Always,
Winter

I Voted!

Several times people who know I'm a junk junkie will ask, "What is the most interesting or unusual thing you have found?"  That's a tough question as many roadside treasures seem interesting to me.  Take today for example.  After one hour and 25 minutes of pickin' I found a red umbrella cover, a black plastic motorcycle battery cover, eyeglasses minus the "glass," and two "I Voted" stickers.  Now that's unusual.  It has been some time since the last election, so...what?  Somebody driving along saw those stickers on his dash and thought, "Oh, I don't need those any more" and tossed them out the window?  I guess.  Then I found a Panther Martin "Guaranateed to catch fish or it costs you nothing" card which had once contained a lure.  This was neither interesting or unusual--it was disappointing.  If there is one purist people group left, it should be fishermen, right?  Why would anybody buy a Panther Martin lure, rip it off the card and throw the package out the window?  And why is a company that sells rods, reels, flies and lures called Panther Martin?  They actually have a black panter as their logo.  Do panthers like to fish?  Or, and this is the explanation I prefer, once upon a time there was a big, black dude nick-named Panther who lived in Mississippi and won his hometown fishing contest every year by using the same handmade lure.  All the guys wanted one like it, but Panther had it patented and wouldn't even show it to them.  When he could no longer fish, Panther began making lures and selling them in a small shop.  The lures became a must-have for fishermen from coast to coast and Panther became a multi-millionaire.  Panther's last name was Martin.

Dolf, a contract carrier sub at the post office saw me pickin' this morning and stopped to say, "You're hard core!  You're everywhere!"  It's probably a good thing that Dolf can't stay in one place for very long, because he was in the middle of the road.  Not long after, a lady in a Lexus slowed to say, "Thank you for doing that."  Actually, four people thanked me for pickin' this morning, but it's nice to be noticed by a Lexus.

Here are a few more true stories since my last blog post.  I was pickin' on Country Club when a lady called to me from across the street.  She was standing in front of her house when she asked, "Do you have a picker?  Gloves?"  "Do you need glasses?" I wanted to ask.  "Will you take my Russian Thistle?  I pulled them yesterday, and they are so nasty.  I'm leaving today for Durango and really don't want them in my yard."  Seriously?  Did she think God was just going to send someone in an orange cowboy hat carrying a black garbage bag, green picker and gloves to come get the Russian Thistle out of her hair?  He must have, because I took them.  I would take almost anything unless it was an upright piano.  By the way, she really liked my new Montana cowboy hat.

Earlier that same week I was pickin' on Hwy. 7 when I heard a man's voice saying over and over, "Leave it, leave it, leave it."  "Oh, my gosh," I thought, "I have run into somebody who actually doesn't want me to pick up trash."  Then I turned to see the guy was talking to his dog.

One morning at 6 a.m. I headed north down Hwy. 7, west on Stanley Avenue, past the hospital and up Moccasin Bypass.  About 20 yards from the summit, a darling little black bear scampered across the road in front of me.  "Oh, great," I said aloud, wondering if the darling little black bear had a mama.  Looking around and seeing no mama, I decided she was having surgery at the hospital and traveled on.  When I came to the top of the bypass, I angled away from the road down the steep side of a ravine where I had noticed a nice collection of cans and bottles a few days earlier.  It was pickin' heaven.  About half way, I was startled by a lady walking on the bypass who let out a yell, covered her chest with her hands and then exclaimed, "I thought you were a bear!"  I went from seeing a bear to being a bear in the space of 10 minutes.

Now I need your help on this last one.  Somewhere in Estes Park there is an Indian who has lost an arrow, lost a moccasin and lost his smokes (American Spirit cigarettes.)  I know this to be true, because I found those three things.  He should be easy to spot given the missing moccasin thing.  Let me know if you see him.

Always,
Winter